Category Archives: Acceptance

Attracting Grace

Posted on by learning to live like water

A new day, a new week.  I have been talking, well texting, with S all weekend.  I hope we got somewhere, I can’t be sure.  I just hope he understands where I’m at with our relationship.  It seemed last night perhaps he did, but I can’t be sure.  Time will tell I guess.  I am the same as always with  him, I love him, but can’t continue to be second in his heart to his ex girlfriend, nor will I stand by while he checks out the rest of the female population.  As I said before, I will love him from a safe distance, until either my feelings for him fade, or his feelings for her and desire to be free to date other women fade.  I’ll keep my heart safe that way.

My son has told me this weekend that when I move to Florida he is going to move to Colorado.  A lot of his friends are moving that way, and he has two of his best friends who want to join him.  The company he works for would likely be able to arrange a transfer, and he will be saving all year to have a financial cushion.  I’m happy that he’s making plans, and being pragmatic about it.  I will miss him so much, but honestly…he had planned to stay here as it was.  so CT or CO, both a long distance from Florida.  And I know he will come see me.  He’ll be by a major airport, so it won’t be difficult.  Apparently a lot of young people are heading that way.  Some because pot is legal, but my son is not a smoker, toker, whatever,  Some because there is so much to do, outdoor activities, and that’s more like him.  He’s always been athletic, and loves to be active.  He’ll have roommates, and he’ll be 24.  Perfect time for him to branch out on his own.

He and I went out to dinner last night, which we rarely do.  We hardly see each other, he either works late and gets home when I’m in bed, or if he doesn’t work late he is off with his friends.

It was a good weekend, even though the Beach Whores had to call off our beach day.  I got a lot done, and yesterday rested my arm that has carpal tunnel all day.  Last night was the first night in weeks that I slept well, without pain.

I’ve been doing the Deepak Chopra (in conjunction with Oprah) 21 day meditation, “Attracting Grace Through Gratitude”.  It’s in the 3rd week now, he is such a wonderful teacher.  I have done many of these 21 days meditations.  His voice is so soothing.

I hope I am attracting grace.  I feel like there was some grace in my ongoing conversation with S over the weekend, and with my son.  Two people who are very important in my life.  And I am grateful, for all the blessings I have.  I’m not feeling angst at the moment, and both of those situations, S and my son, could and have brought it to me before.  So, I guess that there is some grace in that.

Beach Day

Posted on by learning to live like water

Rocky Neck Beach, Niantic CT

The day was hot, my car said 87.  We got to the beach about 10:30.  There was a light breeze off the water, and it was slightly humid and hazy.  We could make out Plum Island in the haze.  (If you ever saw “Silence of the Lambs”, at the end they made an offer to Hannibal the Cannibal to live out his life on Plum Island.  They used to do testing on very very dangerous animal diseases, like Anthrax, etc. there, but I believe it’s closed.  They still don’t allow anyone on the island.  It’s widely believed that’s where Lyme Disease came from.  It is directly across Long Island Sound from Old Lyme, CT, where the disease in humans was first diagnosed.  Just a bit of local information.)

I watched the boats plying the water and wistfully remembered my old life, all the years I was out there on a day like this. But the next best thing is to be sitting on the beach, smelling the salt air, letting the negative ions do their thing.  We talked, ate, walked, rested, read.  It was just a lovely relaxing day.

I had a short texting conversation with A before I went to the beach.  I wanted to make sure we were on the same page and he understood that there were 1000’s of miles between us, which would always remain. So we were good friends, close friends, but that chances are we would both meet someone else. He agreed completely and said he hoped I would find someone who would “adore me”.  Sweet man.

I didn’t hear from S today at all, but did hear from him Friday night.  We first texted, then we talked on the phone.  It was a nice conversation.  He updated me on his health. He made me laugh, I will always appreciate that about him.  He has an offbeat sense of humor that just tickles my funnybone.  We texted a little yesterday before I went on the boat.  I didn’t get in touch with him when I came home last night.  I was just tired from the day, being on the water always makes me sleepy.  He texted me at about 11, wondering if I was angry.  Which made no sense to me, but no, I said, I wasn’t angry, I was just sleeping.  That conversation ended rather badly, because I brought up the 4 day silence I got last week.  I have not heard from him since, even though I apologized this morning for being bitchy, but saying I was also still working through that anger. I think it’s understandable.  Maybe he’s just giving me space to work it out, I don’t know.  Maybe he’s angry.  Whatever it is, I am not worrying about it.

There are many things about him I love (like the way he makes me laugh) but I have no interest in continuing our relationship as it was.  So it’s all good.

It has been a lovely weekend, by the water, all weekend. The thought runs through my mind occasionally that I so hoped I’d be doing these things with S, but I’m doing them, and that’s a good thing. There are no expectations now, no hopes, no dreams, only the present moment, and I am good with it, as it is, whatever it is.  There’s no pain that way either.

The Second Day

Posted on by learning to live like water

Day 2 of no contact with S.  It was much easier, I was much less angry, less confused, less bitter. He runs through my mind occasionally, as in “Why the hell would he treat someone that loved him like that?”  Because, God, I loved him so much.  But I have been able to quickly shake the thought out of my mind.  He did.  He does.  Repeatedly.  I don’t know why.  And it doesn’t matter why.  The fact is he does, and I am free of it.   And what of the love I felt for him?  The unconditional love remains, but I don’t want to see him or talk to  him.  The passionate love, the desire to be with him, is, as Pink Floyd says, “receding”.  Such a perfect description. I can breathe again.

My son and I happened to both be home for dinner tonight.  He put some chicken jalapeno sausage on the grill while I had a glass of wine.  Then we added a whole bunch of food that he brought home from Bobby Flay’s restaurant at the Mohegan Sun Casino, Bar American.  One of his friends is a chef there, and that’s a GOOD connection to have!  He said the kitchen is allowed to comp their family and friends….he paid for 2 appetizers, two entrees and desert, they comped him 4 more appetizers, another entree, another dessert.  Way more food than any two humans could eat, and unbelievably good.

The best part was that I got to sit and eat with my son, and chat with him for awhile, not something I often get to do.  He’s 23, and now we have these adult conversations, lol.  About his girl, my issues, plans, time off, when’s the lawn going to get cut, etc.  Out in the summer evening, warm but not hot.  Blue sky with a few puffy white clouds.  It was a treat.

Starting to feel myself.  No drama, no heartache, no pain.  Peace and quiet.  Lovely.

At least, for tonight, all is well.

Putting Myself Back Together

Posted on by learning to live like water

My morning meditation was disturbed by a thunderstorm this morning.  A warm, soft rain had been falling, which suddenly became a thunderstorm.  I had to end the mediation prematurely and make sure the open windows were not allowing the rain in the house.  They were not, thank goodness.  I didn’t want to have to shut the windows.  It’s not hot enough to turn on the air conditioning, but if all the windows need closing, I’d have to turn it on.

S has not tried to reach me, which I’m not surprised at, but grateful for. I’ve been able to calm my emotions, stop flinching when the text alert goes off on my phone.  Last night I stopped at my cousin’s house on the way home and we went for Chinese food together.  Actually, she’s my ex’s cousin, but one of my best friends.  I knew she was going through a hard time, and was alone last night. So it did us both good.  It’s a blessing to have someone in my life here, who knew me 40 years ago, and for her too.

I still hear from my friend A, such a sweet man.  He’s on the Olympic peninsula in the extreme northwest of the country, 3000 miles from here.  He sent out a group text yesterday of looking across the water and being able to see Canada.  He seems to be really enjoying his trip, and why not?  Retired, financially stable.  Like he said, he’s not flunking retirement, lol.

Hope I can find someone to hang out with this weekend, maybe go to the beach on Sunday, it’s supposed to be hot.  We’re off work on Friday, so we get a lovely 3 day weekend.  Looking forward to it. Might try to get my deck ready to paint.

So, life goes on, peacefully now.  Putting the pieces together, but trying to make something new out of them.

Getting Grounded in Reality

Posted on by learning to live like water

I finally talked to S.  Well, that’s stretching it. We texted.  And I think in the end, we came to an amicable understanding that we needed to stop seeing each other.  That’s how I hoped it would be.  I have no anger, I have no regrets.  I understand him, and I think that while he may not completely understand me, he at least respects my feelings now.  I didn’t want this to end in a blaze of anger and ego, and I think that’s what we managed to do.

Last night I had a strange dream.  I had been thinking how S was now free (he always was, but there will be nothing pulling him back now) to go discover who he is, on his own, discover his passions, decide how he wants to spend his retirement.  That thought converted to a dream as I fell asleep, I guess.  I dreamed he came to just “check in”, just visit.  I was sitting outside, on the side of a hill, next to a border garden, backed up by a fence..  There was another man sitting with me, who I didn’t recognize. I never saw S in this dream but I know he was sitting with us.  I said to him something about my sister…and then “my sister knows everything.”  (LOL, I know I was talking about my older sis, even though I have a younger as well.) When I said it, suddenly a human form began to break out of the garden, sitting up, forming before my eyes from the dirt and grass and flowers in the garden.

I guess that kind of freaked me out, I wasn’t scared,  but it was just weird….and it woke me up.  I don’t know  what it had to do with S, or me.  I don’t think I can look up “human form created from garden” on dreammoods.com, lol.  I would guess it had something to do with being grounded, a spirit, connection to the earth.  As for how my sister ties into it, I really don’t know.  She went through such a hard time this winter, trying to care for my mother after her stroke, and has spent the couple of months regrounding herself, in much the same way I do when I get lost.

That’s two strange dreams I’ve had in a couple of days.  The other one upset me, this one didn’t, but I thought about it a lot, had a hard time getting back to sleep, and ended up texting S, further explaining to him that I still can see him, I still know there is something in his soul worth loving, and that someday I hope he is able to believe it and open it up to someone.  And I felt quite grounded, loving and detached when I said it.  So maybe that was the point of the dream, to help me to become grounded in the reality that it is over with S.

On to a new day, a new week.  I hope there are some new and exciting things coming my way.   And yours.

Love and light.

In the Flow

Posted on by learning to live like water

Switched from red wine to rum tonight.  Feeling pretty good.  I got an answer, the only answer I needed.  So, I could let go, knowing there was no eminent danger.  He can do his thing, and I can do mine.  As it should be.

I believe in unconditional love.  It means you don’t get to pick and choose who you love, you don’t get to judge whether or not they are worthy.  You just have to love everyone.  Or it’s not unconditional.

There are people who never experience that.  They live their lives not believing they are worthy of love. They believe that without a bunch of extraneous stuff, they have no value.  My ex was one of these people. I am sure that because he believed he had no intrinsic value, he believed that anyone who loved him must be stupid.  Or trying to get something from him. And so he vacillated between treating me like I was stupid, or as if I was trying to take him for something.  And all I wanted was for him to love me.

I get it now.  He couldn’t.  Poor guy.  He tried, I think he really tried.  But that little voice in his head was too loud, too strong.  “Don’t love her, she will hurt you.”

I’ve seen unconditional love in action.  I’ve seen it save people, once they realized they had value just because they existed.  And so… I love S, unconditionally.  Not to be mistaken for romantic love.  But I love him.  I love my ex.  I wish all good things for them.  I believe completely that they are good men at their center

In the meantime, I have decided not to talk to my ex about our son.  But maybe talk to him, just tell him a little of my plans, find out about his.  See how he is.  To talk to him about our son is not my business.  It’s my son’s business and my ex’s.  So I’ll stay out of it.  That has been my stance all along.  Recently I have been worried about my son having family nearby when I move.  But he’ll have his family of friends, and me at the end of the phone, which is basically how we communicate now.  He will be fine, and if he wants a relationship with his father, he can open that door himself.

Feeling good tonight.  Better than I’ve felt all week. The flow went where I didn’t expect it to, but suddenly it’s all quite clear to me, and it’s all ok.

I ordered new carpet on order for my family room, I scheduled a measuring of my room.  I cleaned my son’s bathroom.  Because waiting for him to do it will mean waiting forever.  Literally.  Got my hair cut and highlighted.  Grocery shopped.  The day was gray, but in the middle of the day,I realized it was gray still, but was also green.  As in the color of life, every tree and shrub and bit of foliage is so green this time of year.  Green, as in the color of the heart chakra….Green.

Acceptance Comes Slowly

Posted on by learning to live like water

So dawns a new day.  I still have not heard a peep from him.  I left another voicemail, I have texted him.  It is unlike him to hold a grudge with me, especially when I am so obviously trying to find my way back to him.  But this morning, acceptance is setting in.

I had a nightmare about him last night. And now I’m trying to see if I can logically understand why he is silent.  So far these are my choices.

1.  He’s still angry with me for being so hurt the other night.  He cannot stand being the bad guy.  All it  required was an “I’m sorry”. We all make mistakes, he made one in not telling me he was not going to come.  He made one in underestimating how much it meant to me.  But a heartfelt “I’m sorry” would have gone a long way.  A phone call would have been nice.

2. He read the blogs I wrote after, “Crash and Burn” and “Sifting through the smoldering ruins” and was furious.  He dislikes i when I write about him, us.  When we are published on the internet.  No one knows me, or him.  He says, “yes, but when your book is published they will know who you are, and then who I am….”  That’s still such a long shot. But I have to write about me.  I have told him any blog I write is a snapshot in time of how I am feeling at that moment.  So why don’t I just journal it, why publish?  Because when I am in pain, confused, fearful I long for feedback from my peers.  The community helps me through it, helps me not to feel so alone.  I am quite able, obviously, when my feelings change, or circumstances change, to own it, and correct it here.  I rue the day I ever gave him the link to this blog.  It puts a bracket on my freedom to write what I feel here.

3.  Maybe he is too sick to communicate with me.  I can’t know that he actually went to work yesterday.  I do know that he wasn’t in the hospital.  I do know that he didn’t die, because I checked the obits this morning.  Sounds morbid, I know, but if he had an aneurism, which could kill him instantly, I would never know, I would never be told by anyone because no one knows of me. So it was some kind of black comfort not to see his name there. Maybe he is just in too much pain to add the stress of talking to me to it.  But…he doesn’t have to talk with me.  Just to tell me how he is, in a text or an email, and then ask me to continue to leave him alone, and I will.  Just to ease my mind.

4. I have occasionally, thought, what if his ex girlfriend leaves her new husband (that she found within 4 months of breaking up with him after 12 years) and wants him back?  He told me many times he was not over her, that he thought she was the one.  I asked him not that long ago, maybe a couple months, what he would do if that happened.  He said he didn’t know.  Which didn’t help me feel secure with him at all, obviously.  There is no making sense of who we choose to love, he says he loved her, and she took him for so much…..  I just don’t know.  But it is what it is.  I mean, I still love him after all the ups and downs we have had, when it is quite obvious to me that this is not a healthy relationship.  This #4 reason leads me to the nightmare.

I dreamed he finally called me.  We were, in the dream, on the phone, but I could see him at his house as well.  He told me he was in love. His voice was odd, kind of a falsetto.  He has in reality a deep, sexy voice.  I kept asking with who?  And he just kept telling me it was real, he was finally in love. (He constantly told me he didn’t want to be in love.) Then I could see his ex girlfriend in his jacuzzi.  And I said, “tell me who it is or I’m hanging up.”  He got mad at that threat and started yelling back at me on the phone.  I hung up, I woke up.

This morning I can’t help but wonder if the universe was telling me something.  I don’t even know what to look up on dreammoods.com.  It is so unusual for me to dream about him, about anyone I know, and to remember it, though I am sure I remember it because it woke me.

So where am I at this morning?  Still  numb, thankfully, from the wine and an Ambien.  It’s nice how the two combine to knock you out on a night when you’d not have slept otherwise.  Especially after the dream.  I am accepting that I can’t do anything about his refusal to communicate.  I can call the hospitals again, and make sure he’s not there.  I considered calling his ex-wife, who doesn’t know me, and asking her to check on him.  Because I am pretty sure, that unless he goes in the hospital, he has not told his family about  his health issues either.  By family I mean ex-wife and kids. But then I think, in my best Byron Katie mind, no don’t do that.  Then you are in HIS business.  (you know, there are three kinds of business:  Mine, other peoples, and God’s)

So to try to stay in my business, only mine today, I won’t try to reach him but just let it be, as he used to tell me all the time.  Maybe he’ll be in touch when he feels up to it.  Maybe he never will be again.  My business is to go on with my life.  So, I’m going to go get my hair done, go to the grocery store, go get 2 new tires for my car and maybe talk to my ex husband about our son while they put the tires on, since his business is right next door to the tire place.  But his business is weather related and we are supposed to have a huge storm this afternoon (of course, it’s Saturday) so he might not be there.  That should keep me clear of him until tonight.

Acceptance of what you truly don’t want to have to accept is such a mind-fuck  But again, it’s reality.  He is not communicating with me, and I need to respect that is how he wants it, for whatever reason.  I can’t put too much energy into that thought, the lump in my throat begins to grow again.

Slowly taking steps to move beyond this pain.